Noble Pig: Breakfast So Good You’ll Lick the Paper

Just about every Sunday my family can be found jockeying for booth space at The Noble Pig, a spot in North Austin focused on house-made piggy goodness including charcuterie, sausages, terrines, and more. They turn all of their pork creations into sandwiches that will make your eyes roll back into your head they are so good. With cooking pedigrees including Austin’s well-known Wink and Asti, the chefs behind “the pig”, as we affectionately call it, know their stuff. And they’ve channeled all of their energies into a keen focus on getting house-made right. Although equally well known for their lunch fare, which you can read about on Way Out West Austin, Cooking for Engineers, and Austin 360, we’re partial to their breakfasts (probably because we work downtown making frequent lunch visits a bit of a logistical issue). Oh, and did I mention the prices? How could I forget the prices? They are as ridiculously good as the food. For breakfast you won’t pay more than $5 for a filling meal and at lunch you’re only looking at $7 or $8 for a hand-created, belly filling work of art. One of these days the chefs will come to their senses and charge more. When they do I’ll applaud them for doing so and keep right on eating.

The thing is, when you drive up to Noble Pig you’re going to think to yourself

“Is this the right place?”

or possibly

“What was Natanya smoking when she wrote this post?”

or even

“Clearly there’s been some mistake.”

And given the location of the pig squeezed between a cell phone store and a gas station in a slightly beleaguered strip mall off of Highway 620 you are well and right to think all of these things. Even so I beg you to have faith and persevere. You will be rewarded.

To help convince you of this, here’s a rundown of my family’s favorite breakfast offerings. Let’s start with our favorite of favorites, biscuits and gravy. On many mornings we’ll put in an order for three of these and call it good. I’ve been known to eat two orders after a race, becausewhat better combination of carbs and protein is there?

If you’re looking for something with a little spice to it, the chorizo and egg sandwich with cheddar will be right up your alley. Served on thick slices of house-made bread the chorizo has just a little kick that balances out the richness of the perfectly fried egg.

And if you take your breakfast with just a little bit of sweet then you’ll want to try the blueberry waffle, completely with sausage (of course – it’s the pig) and a scrambled egg. The blueberry compote really pushes this dish over the edge. I’ve been known to snarl at my family when they ask, oh so innocently, if I’d like to share just one bite. My response? “Get your own!”

For the days when you’re trying to indulge just a little bit less, like I was on the Sunday of the Austin Food and Wine Festival, you can still treat yourself to a satisfying breakfast with their five spice rolled oatmeal, also featuring the excellent blueberry compote. Oh, and a side of sausage never hurt anyone.

I know that North Austin might as well be Dallas for many of you, but I promise that the drive to The Noble Pig will be well worth it. There are very few places around town serving breakfast that is just this plain good. And I have it on good authority that we aren’t the only ones who think so.